Time for the occupiers to rule directly?

The long arm of Israel’s military occupation prevents Palestinian self-government

Israeli soldiers drive an armored personal carriers during a training exercise near the Gaza Border. Menahem Kahana / AFP

The commotion this week over the possible resignation of Palestinian Authority prime minster Rami Hamdallah denotes a larger problem beyond the fragility of the Palestinian unity government. While the PA has the appearance of a government, complete with a prime minister and president, it has little or no capacity to complete any of the tasks of a government. This is primarily thanks to Israel’s continuing military occupation of Palestine.

The PA has no control over its borders, its exports and imports, the majority of its tax revenue and, outside a small police force operating in select Palestinian cities, the PA lacks the ability to enforce the law. To make matters more complicated, the West Bank has effectively been severed from the Gaza Strip and Hamas militants control the coastal strip’s internal operations.

The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians created the PA to be an interim step towards Palestinian self-government. The formation of the PA served the nefarious purpose of entrenching the Israeli narrative of the conflict as one based on security issues between two relative equals, each with their own respective “governments”. In fact, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not between two equals. One internationally recognised state occupies a stateless people on their own land. As such, the narrative should hinge upon the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to live within secure and recognised borders with full civil rights.

Yet, this security myth has developed to a point whereby there are serious attempts by the PA to establish unity governments and carry out mandates to rule over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. One can’t necessarily fault them for trying but the fact of the matter is that even if the PA were able to create a unity government with Hamas, they would still be under occupation and unable to perform any of their necessary state duties.

Perhaps one possible step to bring about an equitable solution to this conflict is to dissolve the PA and force Israel to accept the full burden and responsibility of its occupation. This would force a fresh conversation on the lack of rights for Palestinians under Israeli occupation at a time when global boycott pressure is ramping up. It would also deprive Israel of its relatively consequence-free control over Palestinian land since the signing of the Oslo Accords. In order to bring about change, the Oslo Accords might just have to go out the window.